91 (Footnote) confederation of planetary governments, regulated by a brutal social, economic, and political hierarchy, 92 (Footnote) with a royal monarch as its figurehead. 93 (Footnote) This type of government emerges with regularity on planets where the citizens abandon personal responsibility for autonomous, self-regulation. They frequently lose their freedom to demented IS-BEs who suffer from an overwhelming paranoia that every other IS-BE is their enemy who must be controlled or destroyed. Their closest friends and allies, whom they espouse to love and cherish, are literally "loved to death" by them. Because such IS-BEs exist, The Domain has learned that freedom must be won and maintained through eternal vigilance and the ability to use defensive force to maintain it. As a result, The Domain has already conquered the governing planet of the "Old Empire. The civilization of The Domain, although considerably younger and smaller in size, is already more powerful, better organized, and united by a egalitarian esprit de corps
